Gift from the gods? Dyslexia, popular culture and the ethics of representation

Abstract

The popular culture of learning difficulties has gained increasing attention in recent years, especially autism and Asperger syndrome. As yet, the representation of dyslexia has gone unexplored. Here, the popular culture of dyslexia is analysed, using the Percy Jackson series as a point of reference. It is suggested that three key tropes characterise these popular cultures: dyslexia as gift, functional limitation and joke. Conceptually, the article seeks to explore the potential for accounts of the popular culture of disability to go beyond the positive/negative ethical binary. It does so by situating representations of dyslexia within dyslexia’s broader histories and cultures, drawing on interviews with people with dyslexia from the UK Dyslexia Archive, amongst other sources. The article suggests that, in the case of dyslexia’s popular culture, the positive/negative ethical binary does not always capture the full complexity of representations.

Points of interest

• This account contributes to emerging work on learning difficulties and popular culture, focusing on dyslexia in western popular culture.

• This account of dyslexia and popular culture focuses, in particular, on one of the most popular representations to feature a character with dyslexia: Percy Jackson.

• Representations of dyslexia fall into three significant tropes: dyslexia as gift and/or functional limitation and/or joke.

• Representations of dyslexia often exceed straightforward conceptualisations as either ethically positive or negative.

• This account calls for future research on the representation of disability to move beyond the positive/negative ethical binary.

Keywords:

• Dyslexia
• representation
• film
• disability studies
• learning difficulties

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the UK Dyslexia Archive team at St John's College, Oxford, for their support with this research. Special thanks to the interviewees for sharing their experiences of dyslexia. Naturally, any mistakes that remain, despite their assistance, are the author’s.

Notes

1 This article uses ‘dyslexic’ as an adjective, but not a noun. This reflects usage by research participants interviewed for the UK Dyslexia Archive (see later).

2 All interviews were conducted by the author between 2016 and 2018. Pseudonyms have been used.

3 In the original Greek myths, Hephaestus’ walking is permanently impaired after he is thrown off Mount Olympus as a baby by his mother, Hera.

4 Typography has been identified as a factor that can disable/enable people with dyslexia, depending on design (see Hillier 2008).

5 The preferred terminology for the point at which dyslexia is recognised varies between individuals. Dale and Taylor (2001) suggest that, for some people with dyslexia, ‘diagnosis’ is deemed overly medical; in interviews conducted here, the term ‘diagnosis’ was used by interviewees.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John Fell Fund [ref. 152/045]; Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund 2014-16 (ref. 105605/Z/14/Z).